After a harrowing battle Lady Kyferin and her stalwart followers have earned themselves a brief respite from Lord Laur's fury. They know, however, that the next assault will be impossible to resist. Their sole hope of survival lies in forging an alliance with the only force capable of resisting the empire's might: the Agerastian heretics themselves.

But time is running out....

Yet over these political machinations looms the Black Shriving, the ancient curse that has struck down all who seek to defend Mythgraefen Hold. Asho and Kethe must embrace their newfound powers and undergo a dark journey into the heart of hellscape of the upper peaks in search of answers and a hope of salvation.

Their lives hang by the slimmest of threads....

If Magister Audsley can but divine the lost secrets of the Sin Casters, if Asho and Kethe can wrest the truth behind the existence of the second Black Gate, and if Lady Kyferin and Ser Tiron can forge a tenuous alliance with their most hated of enemies, they may just have a chance of surviving the oncoming darkness....

The Black Shriving continues the action-packed new epic fantasy series, following on from The Path of Flames - an adrenaline-fueled debut of sin casting mages, heresy, and cold-blooded betrayal in a land where the deepest buried secrets are finally resurfacing to destroy the world.

https://samples.audible.com/bk/adbl/029918/bk_adbl_029918_sample.mp3
I don’t even know where to start with this book. Yet another stunning listen from Phil Tucker and Noah Michael Levine. As I was listening to this book, I caught myself mimicking some of the facial expressions in the book because I was so into it. The only issue I had with the last book was taken care of quickly and my two favorite characters got some amazing screen time in this one. Audsley definitely came into his own and became way more than just that scholar in the back who was too scared to even talk most of the time and I have to say that I really enjoyed his character arc. Likewise, Therok got a lot of time as well and his storyline is just…. enchanting. He goes through so many things that I wish I could talk about but I can’t without getting too spoilery.

I was kind of expecting this one to be more of the same, but Mr. Tucker did it again and just tore asunder my expectations. Some of the chapters seemed a bit off balance, but the way that every chapter left off with a cliffhanger, all the new places in the book, and the rapidly unraveling ideas behind ascension, this book just kept me coming back. I was also quite pleased to see Ser Tiron do something other than glower and yell at everything that moves. He is actually becoming a fleshed out character.

The “Sin Casters” AKA “Flame Walkers” are slowly turning in to my favorite group in the series and I’m just absolutely dying to see how things develop for them in the next book. Nothing quite like binding demons every so often to keep the body young and the skin fresh!

As far as Noah Michael Levine is concerned, I don’t know what I can say about him that I didn’t say in my review for the first book… Fantastic narrator! His many voices definitely keep the story from getting confusing, as it often does in audiobooks, and he just has that right tone of voice to really engross you into the story. Probably my favorite narrator by this point, right up there with Wil Wheaton.